ACUHO-I News Blog

Our apologies to Mr. Wm. Shakespeare for our appropriation of his quote from Macbeth, Act I, Scene I. It seemed so apropos, however, because there’s been quite a few bird-related stories on campuses lately. Check these out:

Fluff-Up at Reed College Over Chicken Dinner During one week at the beginning of spring semester, Reed students can offer and take brief no-credit courses on any topic of interest — striptease, pool, or chokin’ the chicken. No, not that kind of chicken-choking; get your minds out of the gutter! A college senior who raises chickens for eggs and meat, proposed to demonstrate how one of the birds is slaughtered and dressed for dinner. Some students and organizations raised a ruckus, however, because of their distress that ” Reed students are taking part in the killing of live animals.” (I’ve heard it’s really hard to kill dead animals, though.) The course was ultimately canceled.

A Wily Chicken at Glendale Community College An apparently unnamed black chicken at Glendale Community college poses for pictures and accepts food from student fans. But when animal control stops by, he or she (they’re not sure which), crosses the road–natch!–and evades capture.

Turkey Overstays Her Welcome at Harvard Business School This is so ripe for jokes, I’ll let you think of them yourself. Nicknamed Turk Turkee, the wild bird was initially welcomed into the Harvard community, but her esprit de corps is lacking; attempts to roust her from napping in the dean’s garden (a favorite spot) results in pecks and snaps. Her, um, fowl-ness seems to increase when observers don’t offer food. She’s also vain; she’ll stare at herself in the clean, reflective windows of the business school buildings for hours. Some students find her cranky presence entertaining; others have created an “HBS Students FOR THE REMOVAL OF THE TURKEY” Facebook group. Massachusetts state laws regarding wild turkeys make her removal problematic.

Concordia College Chicken Put to Work A poster on Inside HigherEd offered up this chicken story, with a happy ending (for the college and the chicken). “Rocky,” a small, white hen, selected Concordia College as her home in the summer of 2009. Unlike Turk Turkee, Rocky was a good ambassador, welcoming students to campus in the fall and amassing a number of fans. But as winter neared, Concordia officials worried for Rocky’s safety; they also feared a larger predator would make a chicken dinner of her. So they found her a new home, where Rocky can continue her public relations work in safety.

Has your campus adopted an animal, avian or otherwise? Tell us about it!

Today’s Doonesbury strip mentions retention issues among college students: family, work, children…and the circus?

We’ll see you in 2010!

I’m loving the Pink Glove Dance on YouTube. Employees from many areas of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, danced to “Down” by Sean Jean in pink gloves to raise breast cancer awareness. This video makes me happy for many reasons; it’s regular people dancing, they’re all so enthusiastic, and it’s for a great cause.

Note the hospital’s librarians (squee!) gettin’ down at 1:14!

Have you collaborated with your students on a project such as this? Was it good for raising awarness? Tell us about it!

This is a just-for-fun sort of day, isn’t it?

A Week Before Christmas, On Campus
(Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

‘Twas the week before Christmas, all through the campus,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a frat house.
The exams were submitted, with prayers and great care
In hopes that St. Jude would soon be there.

The students were nestled, at home in their beds
while visions of job offers danced in their heads…

What happens next? I’m not sure. Can you folks (on your quiet campuses) supply some ideas?

Seven months ago I welcomed a cute and cuddly little bundle of joy into my life. Her dad and I call her Charlotte. She’s our first child and has proved to provide more joy, but also more work, than I ever could have imagined. Some of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about and many of you may be able to relate only partially, or not at all, but I’m guessing that each and every one of you know what it’s like to have to balance work with personal commitments. (If you don’t, please share your secret with me!)

Residence life at OSU has a history of being a family-friendly environment, which is something that I take for granted since that’s always been my experience. When I came back to work after eight weeks home with my baby, she came with me the entire summer. Even now I still pack her up and wheel her in twice a week. (In January her “come with mommy to work” days will be over) When people outside of our office, either friends, family or other professionals I work with, ask where she stays while I’m at work, I’m both delighted and embarrassed to share with them that she comes with me. I get so many people who say, “that’s great” or “I wish I could bring insert-their-child’s-name-here to work with me.” Personally, I love it and I hate it and I kind of can’t wait for it to be over. Judge me, as you will for being antsy for these days to end.

What do I enjoy about having Charlotte at work with me?

1. I think she’s pretty cute and I love to show her off. I’d be lying if I claimed otherwise. (ed. note — keep reading for photographic proof)
2. It’s a lot easier to pack stuff all together and drag her along with me. I have less to pack and get home earlier since I don’t have to pick up/drop her off anywhere.
3. I don’t have to worry about food for her for that day. I could be more specific, but I’ll spare you the details here.
4. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on her new “tricks.” Just before I started writing this, she was crawling to my feet screaming “ma-ma-meh-meh-MEH” to be picked up. I love that I don’t have to hear about things like that second-hand. I was there for it.
5. She gets to interact with other people and they get to enjoy her. I love the combo of her developing social skills and others just getting to smile when they see her.
6. She makes me smile. It’s nice to have that kind of motivation in your day.
7. It was way easier to get back into the swing of things when I first came back with her. She helped me ease into things and I probably came back earlier than I would have if I wasn’t bringing her along with me. I was still able to be quite productive even with her here when she was younger. Things are a little different now that she’s crawling.

Why having my daughter here isn’t all sunshine and rainbows…

1. I know that by choosing to have her here, I’m being judged by the people that I work with. The truth is, because of the precedent set ahead of me, I might even be judged MORE if I chose not to bring her with me. Either way, I know that someone out there is assuming I’m less competent, less committed to my work, or less considerate of others. (Or any combination of the above)
2. I can’t always get things done as fast as I used to. She’s a joy, but also a distraction.
3. Life is less predictable. Wardrobe malfunctions, illness, general crankiness (the kid, not me) and feeding habits make scheduling a bit harder and sometimes interrupt previously scheduled plans.
4. Our campus, as a whole, is not always ADA friendly. I didn’t look at that too carefully until I was rolling around a stroller, but some buildings are great and others need a lot of work to really be accessible.
5. I am hypersensitive about every whine, cry and peep that comes out of my daughter in an attempt to be considerate of others around me. I can’t tell you how many times I leave the room with Charlotte because she’s making noise and someone says to me “I couldn’t even hear her” or “she’s fine”.
6. My office is a pig sty. My desk has always been cluttered, but the assorted children’s toys add a different level of mess and it’s hard to get your work done, take care of your child AND clean all at once. (more…)

A University of Buffalo student, feeling he couldn’t afford both tuition and housing, spent the summer sleeping in stairwells and in hammocks (likely thanks to the milder summers in western New York state), and started building a small cabin on his university’s Amherst campus in May. Two initial construction attempts were thwarted by university police until he moved the site further into a wooded area. Brian Borncamp reached 80% completion before the university found his cabin and ordered him to leave the site by Monday August 31. He has already left voluntarily. The university will remove the cabin. Officials offered him several options to afford housing, but Borncamp, a computer science and philosophy major who compared himself to a modern Thoreau, turned them down.

…but it’s fun! The Rolling Stones, before they were an international sensation, did a jingle for Rice Krispies. It’s the most rockin’ jingle I’ve ever heard.

Happy ACUHO-I Annual Conference, y’all! If you’re going, say hello to all the ACUHO-I staffers there and have a great time. If you’re not, we’ll provide the presentations in our online library post-conference.

The College of William & Mary is looking for a new mascot and is inviting its constituents to submit proposals. So far, more than 400 nominations have been received. A tentative deadline is set for the fall of 2009.

Among the ideas submitted so far: asparagus (the nominator pointed out that when served with cheese sauce, the mascot and its topping will be wearing the school colors); a stick figure holding a towel, a jester, a green brick with yellow teeth; a bee,  nine birds, three sea creatures and an un-counted number of bears, horses, dogs and mythical animals.

A committee of students, faculty, staff and alumni are reviewing the suggestions and will make a recommendation to William & Mary president Taylor Reveley.

William & Mary will be keeping their colors (green and gold, the colors of asparagus and cheese), and the teams and fans will still be known as the Tribe. Their previous logo, which included feathers alluding to an American Indian tribe, was ruled unacceptable under NCAA regulations.

The new mascot can compliment the word tribe, but that isn’t necessary. The FAQ on the Mascot Search page points out that tribe can imply many things, including “any aggregate of people united by ties of descent from a common ancestor, a community of customs and traditions, adherence to the same leaders,” or “a class or type of animals, plants, articles, or the like.” “Tribe” could be reserved for athletes and fans, and the mascot would be a separate entity, citing the University of North Carolina’s mascot, a ram, and the nickname Tarheels.

The Mascot Search blog says out that they do not want a mascot already claimed by another Colonial Athletic Association institution. So those proposing blue hens (University of Delaware), dragons (Drexel University) or lions (Hofstra University and Old Dominion University) are out of luck. The committee has also eliminated ideas that involve Native American imagry (missing the point); concepts that could not be represented in a costume and proposals that “do not engender pride or affection for W&M.”  Also, Colonel Ebirt, a sort of shell-less turtle wearing a colonial three-cornered hat, has been ruled out. Ebrit (Tribe spelled backward) was the institution’s unofficial mascot in the early 2000s. Ebrit has a Facebook group in his favor, but William & Mary has posted several notes “from” Ebrit, claiming he is retired on the beach with a Pina Colada, and has no interest in resuming the hectic mascot life.

Flash mobs are pre-arranged gatherings of  large groups of people in public places. Often, the folks involved do something in unison, or act unusually. Such as freezing in place in a busy train station. Or parading, as zombies, into a campus building. Or moving reeaaly slooowly in Home Depot (then not moving at all). It’s a fun way to play a harmless joke on an unsuspecting public. Or, in the case of some University of North Carolina students during exam week, a flash mob-rave is a good stress release. In a fine example of the flash mob genre, we present the UNC Library flash mob-rave.

Purdue sophomores Cameron Brown and Brett Westcott felt things were getting a bit gloomy. So every Wednesday, the pair stand outside the Wetherhill Lab of Chemistry from about 12:30 to 2:00, complimenting passers-by on everything from their clothes and acessories, to hairstyles, to the textbooks they’re holding. They have been doing this since the start of the school year, and their unique project and persistence has won them a lot of media attention. The students like the injection of cheer the ”Compliments Guys” bring. Both Brown and Westcott say they won’t entertain any media obligations that might mean missing a Wednesday.